My name is Arkar and I am 52 years old from Chin State. I have 11 family members including 6 sons, but not all live here.
In the past our main livelihood was shifting cultivation, primarily growing maize. During that time it was very difficult and there wasn’t always enough food for our village, sometimes there were shortages.
Because of this, we decided to change to Elephant Foot Yam farming which is very popular in our area, especially selling to the Chinese. We believed it would benefit our family.
It was very difficult to start and required a lot of hard work. We would find the seeds in the forest to plant but it would take several years for them
to grow big enough to sell. Each year it cost 20 lahks ($2,000 NZD) to grow Elephant Foot Yam, and I now have 15 acres. It was difficult on me and my family.
Recently, we heard about an ADRA project that provided training in new agriculture techniques and distributed different vegetable seeds. This inspired us to be more interested in agriculture.
ADRA introduced us to an Elephant Foot Yam cutting machine and washer which cuts labour time and is cheaper to manage. ADRA also provided us with a solar dryer which keeps the rain and dust off the sliced Yam while using the sun to dry it. In the past we depended on clear sunny skies, but in monsoon season we couldn’t dry the harvest well. The solar dryer has really improved our situation as farmers for time and cost.
Today, all farmers in my village have become Elephant Foot Yam farmers like me.